What method did Sima Qian use to describe the psychology of the characters?

Sima Qian's Historical Records is the first biographical general history of China. It is not only a great historical work, but also a masterpiece of biographical literature, which can be described as "the historian's swan song, leaving Sao without rhyme". As a masterpiece of biographical literature, Historical Records recorded more than 4,000 characters, of which 100 was impressive. These distinctive characters often represent a certain class of people in society, reflecting a social phenomenon, and some of them have reached a certain typicality. One of the important reasons why Historical Records has successfully created many historical figures with distinctive personalities is that Sima Qian is good at observing, studying and pondering people's inner feelings, and subtly portrays the inner world of the characters by various artistic means. For the psychological description art of characters in Historical Records, this paper tries to talk about it from the following aspects.

First, it is an aspect of the psychological art of describing characters in Historical Records to describe their psychology through individual language. Language is the expression of characters' thoughts and feelings, and it is easy to express their psychology. Sima Qian can accurately grasp the character's personality, and through personalized language, let the character show a certain psychological state and inner thoughts and feelings in a specific environment in the dialogue. For example, Chen Sheng, Xiang Yu and Liu Bang were all powerful figures in the Qin and Han Dynasties, and they all said that they had gained the dominance of the world. The three people in historical records have different personalities, different languages and different psychology. Chen Sheng said, "If a strong man does not die, he will do it for himself. If he dies, he will be famous. What kind of prince will it be? " It's just that this peasant uprising hero, who was born as a servant and had a strong resistance to fate and feudal imperial power, was eager to master his own destiny and make some achievements. Seeing Qin Shihuang at the same time, Xiang Yu's words were "He can take his place". This is the tone of a brave, talented son who has a deep hatred with Qin. Its ambitious, supercilious psychology, open and undisguised personality are all obvious. Liu Bang's words are "a gentleman should be like this", which is the confession of a Surabaya pavilion who thinks he is poor, and his psychological state of sophistication and ambition is also vividly portrayed.

Second, describe psychology through inner monologues. Inner monologue is the most authentic record of a character's heart, and it is easy to express the feelings that the character is inconvenient to hide. It comes from the deep heart of the character and can naturally reveal the inner activities of the character. Sima Qian used his lyrical brushwork well to reveal the psychology of the characters, so his inner monologue showed sincere and rich lyricism. This kind of true and profound psychological description is especially concentrated and obvious in the biography of Li Si. Lise's monologues and feelings are written in many places, and each feeling is a representative expression of Lise's feelings at various critical moments in life. For example, he went into the warehouse to see the mouse and lamented that "people are as good as rats, in their own ears." This is revealed in Reese's wretched and dark heart. He is moved by the scene and has some feelings, unwilling to be poor and humble, and envious of wealth. After becoming famous, he sighed: "Hehe! I heard Xun Qing say, "Too many things are forbidden". Now those who have no official rank are extremely rich. When the situation is extremely bad, I don't know what taxes will bring. " This is Li Sizhi's self-satisfaction, imposing, showing off his wealth and wealth, and at the same time worrying that the extremes meet, fearing that all the blessings will come to an end. When Qin Shihuang died, he was kidnapped by Zhao Gao and obeyed Zhao Gao's private reform testament. He looked up at the sky, sighed with tears and said, "Ha ha! I am alone in troubled times and can't die, so I entrust it to my life. " This is about the ambivalence that Reese couldn't bear the burden of the first emperor, but he was held hostage by wealth and wealth, and he only wanted to save his life and get promoted, but he couldn't be at the mercy of treacherous court officials. This is true and credible. The Biography of Lisi has created a vivid image of Lisi, which is inseparable from the meticulous and profound psychological description throughout the whole article. This kind of expression of characters' inner world in the form of monologues and exclamations can be seen everywhere in Historical Records.

Third, use eyebrows and expressions to express the psychology of the characters. The mood and emotion of a character can be reflected by the blinking and closing of eyes. Sima Qian is good at combining the inner world of characters with the expression of eyebrows, and grasping the change of instantaneous expression and the difference of action to describe the things deep in the spirit of characters. At the Hongmen banquet, Fan Kuai rushed into the account. "He threw the curtain to the west, looked at the king, pointed at his hair and cracked his eyes." By writing his eyes, he reappeared Fan Kuai's reckless, fearless and angry psychology, trying to defend Liu Bang to the death. Huaiyin Hou Zhuan wrote that Huaiyin teenagers pestered Han Xin for no reason. "So I believed it, and I squatted out." From the crotch of a teenager, Han Xin knew that "it's a shame not to fight at the sight of humiliation" and "a saint can't be humiliated". As a gentleman, Han Xin didn't want to draw his sword, but he accepted the insult when he thought that he couldn't throw his life away in vain now. Here, Sima Qian used the word "right and wrong" to write Han Xin's eyes, which contained hatred, contempt and forbearance, and portrayed Han Xin's anger, contempt and thoughtful psychology towards teenagers, and received special artistic effects.

Fourthly, describe the psychology of the characters through their characteristics, details and actions. Sima Qian is good at penetrating the contradiction and connection between the external actions and internal activities of characters through typical details, so that the behavior of characters reflects their psychological state like a mirror. When Liu Bang and Xiang Yu competed for the world, they heard that Xiang Yu had killed Yidi, and Liu Bang "confessed to crying" in front of everyone. This detailed description of frank crying vividly shows Liu Bang's ability to improvise and touch the scene. His "frank crying" is not really sad. To know that Xiang Yu didn't kill Yi Di, how could Hanwang be Yi Di? "He cried frankly, this is the psychology of" especially to anger the world ". At the hongmen banquet, "Fan Zengwang counted to three, but the kings were indifferent. Fan Zengqi called Xiang Zhuang ". During the short two or three crossings, Fan Zeng's eagerness to kill Liu Bang was manifested through a series of actions such as "eye", "lift", "show", "get up" and "shout".

Sima Qian is also good at showing the inner world of characters through one or two verbs. For example, in Biography of Sima Xiangru, when Zhuo Wenjun eavesdropped on the other side like playing the piano, he said, "I enjoy it, but I'm afraid I can't do it." . With the words "Yue", "Good" and "Afraid", the complex psychological activities of a young woman who has just lost her spouse with high cultural accomplishment, who loves romantic talents and is worried that she is not worthy, are vividly displayed. "Biography of Huaiyin Hou" wrote, "Gaozu has come from the imperial army, and when he saw his death, he was happy and pitied." Although only two verbs "joy" and "pity" are used, Liu Bang's complicated inner activities of hating Han Xin for a long time, wanting to kill Han Xin and feeling indefensible are exposed.

Fifth, describe the complex psychology of the characters through contradictions and conflicts. The psychology of characters is complex and contradictory, and the character of characters is sometimes hidden, which can only be fully displayed in fierce contradictions and conflicts. Sima Qian is good at telling stories about historical events and writing conflicts. He always puts contradictions and conflicts at the forefront, which leads to the complex relationship between characters, and then forms the complex psychology of characters, so that their characters can be expressed in conflicts. The "Debate of the East Court" in the biography of Wei An is a wonderful fragment to describe the psychology of characters in conflicts. In the debate, Jennifer Tian gave a dirty lie, while Dou Ying argued. Emperor Wu knew that Tian Fen was talking nonsense, but Tian Fen had the support of the Queen Mother, so he asked the minister, "Who are these two?" . Ji An said that Dou Ying was right at both ends of the history of the official Party. The ancient counselor Han Guoan saw that Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty was biased towards Dou Ying, and the Empress Dowager was biased towards Tian Fen. He didn't dare to offend anyone, so he said, "What Wei Qi said is true", and then he said, "Only what the Prime Minister said is true". He kicked the ball to Emperor Wu of Han Dynasty, who was dissatisfied with Tian Fen's bossiness and wanted his ministers to kill him, but they were silent. Sima Qian stirred up a thousand waves with the stone of "The Debate of the East Palace", and many characters were entangled into complicated contradictions. In this sharp and complicated contradiction, the inner world and personality of ministers such as Emperor Wu, Tian Fen, Han Anguo and Zheng Dangshi are described in detail. Sima Qian can go deep into his heart and try to figure out its dynamics, so that readers can get a glimpse of the inner world of the characters from many aspects, thus giving the characters a three-dimensional sense.

In addition, Sima Qian is also good at revealing the psychology of characters and portraying their personalities through letters and articles, such as Zou Yang's Prison Book and Li Si's exhortation book, so that characters can vent their ups and downs and reproduce their inner world. Folk songs and proverbs are also a way for Sima Qian to portray characters and describe their psychology, and to express his praise and criticism through them. For example, the biography of Hengshan in Huainan quoted folk songs to satirize the ruling class for power and profit. It is a special way to describe the psychological activities of characters and highlight their personalities through fantasy divination, which can make the psychological development of characters intuitive, visualize abstract psychological activities, and thus reflect the mental state of characters.

A successful biography should not only show the life process of the characters, but also reveal the internal motivation of this process. People's feelings in life are colorful, and people's psychological activities are extremely complicated. Therefore, the artistic techniques of depicting characters' souls in Historical Records are more colorful, which is a remarkable development compared with the previous historical biography literature. Historical Records is the first biographical literary masterpiece centered on the author. It inherits the tradition of describing characters' psychology in pre-Qin historical biography, and has its own unique creation and new development. Studying and drawing lessons from the rich experience of describing the inner world in Historical Records is beneficial to the development of China's novels, plays and biographical literature.

Ren Yana, a teacher at Puyang Vocational and Technical College, Henan Province.